Pinocchio is a beloved character by children of the whole world, the creator of which was the Italian writer and journalist Carlo Collodi. As a child, many of us probably thought about the question: what is the difference between Pinocchio and Pinocchio? Fairy tales seem to be similar, but they seem to be different, and the authors are different. Let's try to figure it out.
Biography of Carlo Collodi
On November 24, 1826, in the Italian city of Tuscany, in the city of Florence, a boy named Carlo Lorenzini was born. This was the first of ten children of Angiolica Orzali, a native of the town of Collodi, located sixty kilometers from Florence, and Domenico Lorenzini. Carlo's parents worked in the house of the wealthy Florentines, the Marquis and Marquise Ginori - his father was a cook and his mother was a servant. Carlo graduated from junior school in his mother's hometown - Collodi, and then, by the decision of his parents and the advice of the Marquise Ginori (she was the boy's godmother), he went to the theological seminary, in which the Marquis paid for the education. However, the young man did not want to be a priest - he was attracted by politics and journalism.
Young and enthusiastic, Carlo became a member of the Risorgimento (Italian Renewal) - the national liberation movement of the Italian people against foreign Austrian rule and for the unification of the fragmented regions into a single state. At 22, he took part in revolutionary battles and served as a volunteer in the army during the first Italian War of Independence (1948). This war ended with the defeat of the Italian patriotic forces and an increase in Austrian reaction. And in 1859, the national liberation movement in Tuscany flared up with renewed vigor, and again Carlo volunteered for the front - he served in the Navarre cavalry regiment of the Tuscan army. This time, the Austrian troops were defeated, and the scattered regions of Italy began to gradually unite.
Each time, returning home from the war, Carlo Lorenzini devoted himself to literary activity and journalism. He wrote essays, short stories, feuilletons for newspapers and magazines, was an editor and reporter for patriotic publications, later a theater censor, and also published the political-satirical magazines "Lantern" ("Il Lampione") and "Shootout" ("La Scaramuccia"). Another area of activity of Carlo was the compilation of the explanatory dictionary of the Italian language.
1856 was a turning point in his biography for Carlo Lorenzini. He published his first work, which brought him fame as a writer - the novel "Par" ("Un romanzo in vapore"). The novel's form is unusual and original: it is a historical and humorous guidebook intended to be read on the train from Florence to Livorno. The travel time along this route in those years was three hours, and that is how much the time of reading the novel was calculated; the book was given to the passenger along with the ticket. The author of this work was named Carlo Collodi - he took a pseudonym for the name of the town where his mother was born and where he studied in elementary school. All subsequent literary works of the writer were published under this pseudonym.
After 1960, Collodi wrote many works of various genres - short stories, critical and satirical articles, essays, comedies and feuilletons, as well as novels. In the future, he combined the disparate works into several collections: "Sketches" ("Le Macchiette"), "Funny stories" ("Storie allegre"), "Eyes and noses" ("Occhi e nasi"), "Entertaining humorous notes about art”(“Divagazioni critico umoristiche”),“Note gaie”and others.
The next important milestone in the biography of Carlo Collodi was in 1875, when he first turned to work for a children's audience. And he began with translations of Charles Perrault's fairy tales. Then, from 1878 to 1881, he worked on a series of books about the adventures of Giannettino - a funny, slightly lazy and cowardly gluttonous boy. Collodi later combined all these stories into the collection “Il viaggio per l'Italia di Giannettino” (Giannettino's Journey through Italy).
In 1880, experiencing some financial difficulties due to his addiction to card games, Carlo Collodi began work on his most important work, which later brought the writer worldwide fame - "The Adventures of Pinocchio: the history of a wooden doll" ("Le avventure di Pinocchio: storia di un burattino "). Translated from Italian "Burattino" is a wooden puppet doll. This is where our "Russian" Buratino came from later! Collodi conceived Pinocchio ("pine nut" in Tuscan dialect) as a revived doll made from a piece of wood by the joiner Gepetto. The little wooden man has gone through a difficult path of development from a capricious and lazy puppet to becoming a real living boy - noble, hardworking and kind-hearted.
The first chapters of "Pinocchio" were published on July 7, 1881 in the Roman "Gazette for Children" ("Il Giornale dei Bambini") and immediately gained incredible popularity among the children's audience. Initially, the story of the wooden man ended at the tragic moment when the Cat and the Fox hung him on a tree. However, the editorial office of the newspaper was inundated with letters from disgruntled readers, in which they asked Collodi to write a sequel with a good ending, which he did. As a result, in 1883, the publisher Felice Paji collected all the chapters of The Adventures of Pinocchio, published in periodicals, and published a separate book, with illustrations by Enrico Mazzanti. Over the next 25 years after the first edition, the book about Pinocchio has been reprinted 500 times!
Today "The Adventures of Pinocchio" has been translated into many languages (according to various sources from 87 to 260) and is popular among children and adults all over the world. The story of the wooden man has been filmed more than 400 times or embodied on the theater stage. In 1940, Walt Disney created one of the most popular Pinocchio cartoons. In addition, they tried to rewrite or add to this tale many times - for example, in the 30s in Italy Pinocchio was presented in the guise of a fascist, and then in the late 1940s - a boy scout. In the Japanese version, Pinocchio fell to the dragons, in England he became a laborist, in Turkey - a Muslim praising Allah, etc.
Unfortunately, the man who is rightfully considered the founder of Italian children's literature did not have children - for various reasons he did not create a family. Carlo Collodi died of an asthmatic attack on October 26, 1890 in Florence, seven years after the publication of The Adventures of Pinocchio. The writer was buried in the cemetery of the Church of San Minialto al Monte.
Interesting Facts
Quite recently (at the turn of XX and XXI) it was unexpectedly revealed that Pinocchio had a real prototype. American archaeologists from Boston excavated in Tuscany, near the cemetery where Carlo Collodi is buried. Having visited the grave of the writer, the Americans accidentally noticed a burial in three rows where a certain Pinocco Sanchez was buried, the dates of his life and death (1790-1834) testified that he and Collodi were almost contemporaries, and little Carlo could well know the adult Pinocco. Archaeologists have obtained permission from the Tuscan authorities to exhume Pinocco Sanchez. The examination amazed the researchers: the remains of Sanchez's body were partly wooden! Soon, some church records were found, miraculously preserved. It turned out that Pinocco was born a dwarf, but this did not relieve him of his military service, and he served as a drummer for 15 years. During military exercises held in the mountains, he could not resist on a rock and fell down, breaking his legs, nose and damaging his intestines. Pinocco Sanchez underwent several operations, his legs had to be amputated, and a wooden insert was installed instead of his nose. Master Carlo Bestulgi made wooden prostheses for the unfortunate dwarf; the stamp with the master's initials was found on the prostheses after exhumation. After operations and prosthetics, Pinocco lived for more than ten years, earning his bread by performing at fairs. During the execution of one of the tricks, he tragically died. Studying the archives of Carlo Collodi, scientists discovered his letter to their cousin, where the writer directly pointed to the dwarf Pinocco Sanchez - an unhappy and courageous man. Collodi told his cousin that at first he thought of writing a serious novel about him, but for some reason he began to compose a fairy tale for children. At the same time, he himself wondered why, since the life of the dwarf was not fabulous at all, but tragic.
- In the late 19th century, the Vatican tried to ban Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio. The reason was that the living creature in this work was not created by God, but by man, a master carpenter.
- In the 1970s, a high-profile trial took place in Florence, which today can be considered curious. There were plaintiffs who accused the fairy-tale character of Pinocchio of constant lies and, thereby, of violating public morality. Fortunately, justice was done, and the fairytale hero was acquitted.
- In 1956, a fundraiser was announced in Italy to create a monument to the beloved character of Pinocchio. Over 10 million people from around the world responded to this call, and as a result, a monument created by the famous Italian sculptor Emilio Greco was erected in the city of Collodi, in the Pinocchio Park. The monument is a bronze figure of a boy holding a wooden doll - a symbol of the puppet's transformation into a human. Carved on the pedestal: ".
- In 2004, The Guardian newspaper announced the imminent opening of the "Dream Museum" in the town of Collodi, dedicated to Carl Collodi and his Pinocchio. The idea for the museum belongs to Federico Bertola, an Italian millionaire who owns a construction company. Federico comes from a poor environment. As a child, his favorite book was The Adventures of Pinocchio, and this story motivated the millionaire to go ahead and achieve wealth. In gratitude, Federico Bertola decided to create a "Museum of Dreams" and for this purpose bought the abandoned Villa Garzoni, which had previously been the property of the Countess and Gardi and on which, according to legend, Collodi wrote the history of the wooden doll.
- In the town of Collodi, there is the Carlo Collodi National Foundation, the library of which contains over three thousand volumes of The Adventures of Pinocchio, translated into the languages of the peoples of the world.
- In Collodi, the trattoria "Red Cancer" is very popular among tourists and locals, named after the place where the Cat and Lisa dined (in the "Golden Key" it is "Three Minnows"). The culinary magazine Red Cancer is published every month by the Italian Association of Restaurateurs.
Pinocchio's profile picture became a trademark of Italy in the early 2000s, replacing the words “Made in Italy”. The initiative to introduce a single product label was discussed in Parliament, was supported by the Carlo Collodi National Foundation, as well as by many public and political figures. Thus, Pinocchio became a true symbol of his state.
"The Adventures of Pinocchio" in Russia
Russian readers first got acquainted with the works of Carlo Collodi in 1895: in St. Petersburg the collection For Easy Reading: Collection of Humorous Novels and Stories was published, where some of the works of the Italian writer were published. The first partial translation of "The Adventures of Pinocchio" into Russian, made a little from the 480th Italian edition by Camille Danini and edited by S. I. Yaroslavtsev, was published in the journal "Heartfelt Word" in 1906, and then in the publishing house of M. O. Wolf - in 1908 under the title "Pinocchio: The Adventures of a Wooden Boy", with illustrations by Enrico Mazzanti and Giuseppe Magni."The Adventures of Pinocchio" in Russian was published many times in Russia and the USSR - with different translations, illustrations and titles (for example, "The Adventure of the Pistachio: The Life of a Parsley Puppet", "The Story of a Doll, or The Adventures of Pinocchio: A Story for Children"). In 1924, in Berlin, the Nakanune publishing house published the book The Adventures of Pinocchio, translated by Nina Petrovskaya and illustrated by Lev Malakhovsky, and the editor of the publication was none other than Alexei Tolstoy, later the author of The Adventures of Buratino. The complete translation of the book was made by Emmanuil Kazakevich and published only in 1959.
Pinocchio and Pinocchio
In the mid-1930s, the Goths in the newspaper "Pionerskaya Pravda" began to publish the story of Alexei Tolstoy "The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino" about a mischievous wooden boy. The author took the "The Adventures of Pinocchio" by Carlo Collodi as a basis and subjected them to significant processing and adaptation to the Soviet mentality. Writers and historians have been arguing about whether it is plagiarism or not for many years. Tolstoy himself managed to avoid the name Collodi when talking about his work. He came up with a story about how in childhood he allegedly read a book about the adventures of a wooden doll, the book got lost, and he, retelling this tale to friends, each time he made changes to it and came up with new adventures. Tolstoy gave the heroes other names. Pope Carlo (original Gepetto) was named after Collodi, and this is the only hint of the true authorship of the story. The word "Buratino" was already in the Italian title of the original ("wooden doll"). Tolstoy's fairy with azure hair began to be called Malvina - a good girl with impeccable manners. The owner of the puppet theater Manjafuoko (Italian "fire eater") from Tolstoy received the name Karabas Barabas (Karabas - "black head" in Kazakh). The names of Lisa and Cat appeared - the famous Alice and Basilio. From the history of the wooden doll, Tolstoy removed a very important point: the growth of the nose after lying. Well, and most importantly - Pinocchio, unlike Pinocchio, never became a man.
